Tag: gamekeeper

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve heard that gamebird shooting, whether it be Red Grouse, Pheasant or Red-legged Partridge shooting, and all its associated ‘management’ is vital for rural community cohesion and it’s only so-called ‘Townies’ that don’t understand and want to protest about it.

As with most things claimed by the gamebird shooting industry, it’s not true.

Over recent years a number of local rural communities in England (particularly across Yorkshire) and Scotland have rejected this fictional romanticism of their lives and have found the courage, often in the face of intimidation from dark powerful forces, to voice their dissent.

Now it’s happening in Wales, too.

The following article was published by The Telegraph last week:

A village is locked in dispute with wealthy tourists who pay more than £3,000 for a day’s pheasant shooting.

Residents in Pennal, a community of 404 in Snowdonia, North Wales, claim the shoots have set “neighbour against neighbour”, and led to claims of intimidation and harassment.

Some villagers have even complained of dead foxes dumped in their gardens.

But others, who support shooting, said “incomers” to the village were behind the complaints, and told them to “move back to where they came from” if they don’t like it.

The shoots, run by Cambrian Birds on the Pennal Estate, are marketed as “the most talked-about in the UK” for their “high-quality driven pheasants and partridges along with top class hospitality”.

Guests are promised at least four drives a day, and a two-course meal or afternoon tea.

But an anonymous survey in the village uncovered anger at what some locals see as a “takeover” by “large commercial shoots”.

One resident said: “Disharmony and division within our once peaceful village. Most people I speak to in the village hate what’s happening but are afraid to publicly voice their concerns for fear of retribution or escalating the division further.

“These fears are evident in that a local lady in her seventies living alone has now had two healthy looking but dead foxes put in her garden with loud bangs on her windows in the night. Police were informed, but little action.”

Another villager said there had been “no consultation with village residents” before it was “taken over”.

The same resident complained of “acts of intimidation towards people who speak up”, alleging there had been “shooting across gardens late at night” and even “dead foxes dumped on one person’s land”.

It is not known who is behind these alleged “acts of intimidation”.

Other residents said they felt pressured to take sides.

“Several residents asked me to declare whether I was with or against the shooting,” complained one, adding: “One person even told me who I should talk to and who not.”

They claimed that some villagers were now considering “moving away” as a result of the disputes.

But supporters argued the shoots bring vital income to the rural economy, and accused critics of being “incomers”, and part of the “anti-shooting brigade”.

A lifelong resident, who described themselves as “Pennal born and bred”, said: “Cambrian Birds pays a decent rent to the hill farmers of Pennal, helping in many cases, young families to stay and work the land. Young families move into the area, helping the local school.”

The resident said that if the “anti-shooting brigade” didn’t like it they should “move back to where they came from”.

They likened it to “buying a house next door to a pub and then complaining about the noise of throwing-out time”.

Cambrian Birds has been approached for comment.

ENDS

The Telegraph article was likely inspired by an article in Cambrian News on 23 July 2025 about a village protest held against the Cambrian Birds shoot at Pennal.

This isn’t the villagers’ first protest against Cambrian Bird’s game-rearing and shooting business. In January this year they featured in an article in the Powys County Times about how they’d erected banners and sprayed ‘crime-scene’-type silhouettes of Pheasants on village roads as part of their protest:

Some of you may recognise the name ‘Cambrian Birds’. Its associated business, ‘Cambrian Shooting’, hit the headlines in January 2022 when the League Against Cruel Sports published covert video footage showing someone from the shoot at Dyfi Falls (one of six shoots managed by Cambrian Sporting) chucking at least 45 shot Pheasant and Red-legged Partridge carcasses down a mineshaft (here).

A statement from the company later confirmed that the person filmed was one of their gamekeepers. They said he had been ‘severely reprimanded‘ and that ‘he no longer works for the company‘ (here).

Natural Resources Wales launched an investigation into the possible pollution and contamination of the river close to the site where the mass gamebird dumping took place but as far as I can tell, nothing ever came of it.

To read more about the Dyfi Falls shoot, this blog by Jeremy Moore, a leading Welsh environmental photographer, is fascinating.

Robbie Marsland is the Director of the League Against Cruel Sports for Scotland & Northern Ireland. He’s also a founding member of REVIVE, the coalition for grouse moor reform.

Here’s his opinion piece published in The Herald today.

Here we go again. The opening of the grouse shooting season is upon us. It used to be called the “Glorious Twelfth”. More often than not, the name is now preceded by the word, “controversial”.

Why the controversy? For decades, the shooting of wild grouse for entertainment flew under the radar. But now, there’s much better public understanding about what’s going on in our uplands.

No matter what your views are about killing an animal for fun, recent research has revealed the circle of destruction that surrounds grouse shooting in Scotland.

This circle of destruction isn’t just a catchy phrase, it’s a systematic assault on natural ecosystems where each destructive practice enables the next, creating an interconnected web of environmental damage that stretches across the grouse moors, that, in total, comprise around 12% of Scotland’s land.

On this land, hundreds of thousands of grouse are shot in a “good year”. A good year means there’s a high density of grouse on the moor, allowing substantial numbers of birds to be shot while still ensuing a sustainable breeding stock. To achieve a “good year”, then, that population of grouse needs to be “managed” by the shooting estates to be unnaturally high.

Population sizes are naturally increased by access to food and shelter and are decreased by exposure to disease and predators, what is commonly understood to be “the balance of nature”. The balance of nature ensures a sustainable ecosystem that looks after itself. But a balanced ecosystem obviously doesn’t produce an over-abundance of grouse that can produce a “good year” for the annual shooting season. To achieve that “good year”, an imbalance needs to be created; the balance of nature is turned on its head.

Extra food and shelter are provided by burning heather in the winter months. This provides new green shoots for the birds in the spring. It also releases C02 in to the atmosphere, encourages wildfires and stops trees from growing. This systematic burning creates the artificial habitat foundation upon which the entire circle of destruction depends.

Birds of prey perch in trees. Of course, birds of prey are protected species, but breeding pairs are mysteriously absent from many Scottish grouse moors. Their natural diet includes grouse.

Foxes, stoats, weasels and crows also naturally control the numbers of grouse. But as they have no legal protection, they can be killed to ensure there are more grouse to shoot. The largest scientific assessment so far revealed that around 200,000 foxes, stoats and weasels are killed by gamekeepers each year in Scotland to ensure artificially high numbers of grouse.

There are compelling reasons why estates invest so heavily in maintaining those high populations of grouse. A report to the Scottish Government from the Independent Grouse Moor Management Group revealed the capital value of an estate can be increased by £5,000 for every pair of grouse shot. Economic rewards such as these may go some way to explain why landowners will go to such lengths to maintain this artificially imbalanced system.

The natural balance of ecosystems isn’t entirely dependent on predation. A disease that regularly reduces grouse numbers is carried by a small worm, the strongyle worm. To reduce its impact, shooting estates deploy tens of thousands of grit-filled trays medicated with flubendazole in an attempt to kill the worms in the guts of the grouse.

This is despite the medical and veterinary industry’s concerns about the over-prescription of such chemicals. This mass chemical medication completes the circle of destruction. The inflated grouse populations created by habitat manipulation and predator slaughter then require pharmaceutical intervention to remain viable, yet this intensive management system operates without meaningful oversight.

Scotland introduced grouse moor licensing in 2024 under the Wildlife Management & Muirburn Act, supposedly to deter wildlife crime and ensure sustainable management. The reality has proven farcical. The grouse shooting industry threatened legal action against NatureScot’s interpretation of the legislation. Rather than stand firm, NatureScot capitulated, weakening the licences by changing coverage from entire estates to tiny areas around shooting butts. It’s still unclear how this mess will be resolved.

Polling shows that 60% of Scots oppose grouse shooting, with 76% against the predator control that kills hundreds of thousands of mammals annually. Even in the most remote rural areas – the supposed heartland of shooting support – opposition still outweighs support.

Turning the balance of nature on its head goes on year in, year out on Scottish shooting estates. But “good grouse years” do not. When you look at historical trends, the last time there was a “good grouse year” was 2018. Predictions, in Scotland, for 2025 suggest that too will be a “bad year”.

That means, even if you think it’s ok to kill a bird for fun, over that period of time more than a million foxes, stoats, weasels and crows will have been killed for nothing. Thousands of square miles of heather will have been needlessly burned and tons upon tons of chemicals will have been ineffectively strewn across the countryside. The economic incentives that drive this destruction continue to operate regardless of whether or not a “good year” for grouse emerges.

The circle of destruction surrounding grouse shooting reveals the true cost of allowing privileged minorities to treat Scotland’s land as their private playground. Until we break this interconnected system of destruction entirely, Scotland’s uplands will continue to serve private interests rather than the public good, and our wildlife will continue to pay the price for a democracy that has forgotten who it’s supposed to serve.

Meanwhile, the circle of destruction grinds on, crushing Scotland’s wildlife and ecosystems beneath the weight of economic interests that benefit the few while imposing costs on the many. For those of us who think its unethical and cruel to shoot a bird out of the sky – it’s always a crying shame.

ENDS

This all sounds horribly familiar.

A short article appeared on the BBC News website on 5 August 2025 as follows:

The disappearance of two tracked pine martens is being treated as suspicious, police said.

Cumbria Police and South Cumbria Pine Marten Recovery Project are appealing for information to help trace the rare animals that were released near Grizedale Forest earlier this year.

It is believed one of the mammals has two dependent kits.

Tracking them is part of a University of Cumbria-led scheme to reintroduce the species to south Cumbria and the loss “could compromise their recovery”, Cumbria Police said.

Pine martens are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and it is an offence to intentionally or recklessly kill, injure or take them.

It is also an offence to damage their habitat.

Anyone with information has been urged to contact the force.

ENDS

The South Cumbria Pine Marten Recovery Project is a dynamic regional partnership led by the University of Cumbria and includes the Upper Duddon Landscape Recovery Project led by the University of Leeds, Natural England, Cumbria Wildlife Trust, Lake District National Park Authority, Forestry England and the Graythwaite Estate.

The Project is translocating Pine Martens from Scotland to south Cumbria as part of a coordinated national recovery scheme for this species.

Released Pine Martens are fitted with VHF-radio collars for tracking, and the team also uses camera traps, den boxes and scat analysis for monitoring.

Stand by to read the usual excuses for these suspicious disappearances, from the usual suspects – windfarms, faulty tags, it’s all a set up by anti-game-shooting extremists, the Pine Martens never existed in the first place, tag data serve no other purpose than to entrap gamekeepers etc etc.